[MRM]

The X-Series are so evocative because they represent such rapid advancement in speed and technology that it seemed at the time that a solution to all of our problems was just over the horizon. That period of time in post-war America must have been one of continuous wonder and amazement.

Measure it in terms of increases in speed of the fastest human on the planet. It took thousands of years for man to go from walking to the wheel to animals and sailboats. The steam engine ruled for a couple of hundred years before the internal combustion engine transformed transportation and made air travel possible. It took perhaps 50 years for airplanes to transform from rickety biplanes to 500 MPH piston-driven fighters. Then came rockets and jet engines and in barely a decade humans went from being limited by the sound barrier to traveling thousands of miles per hour. The rate of increase in the maximum speed of human travel was increasing at exponential rates with seemingly no end in sight. In the space of barely 20 years humans went from perhaps 500 miles per hour to 24,000 miles per hour.

Sadly, as with Hotel California, we haven't had that spirit here since 1969. Humans haven't even attempted to increase the speed record in half a century. The X-Plane program and the narrow window of time in which they flourished will remain a lost golden age. So it is good to remember those more innocent and hopeful times and honor those magnificent machines and the people who made them possible.